Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel met with President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday morning to discuss “White House operations, how to make that work.”
The former White House chief of staff for President Barack Obama told reporters at Trump Tower that he also talked with Trump about immigration, infrastructure and the economy. Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief adviser Steve Bannon were also in the meeting.
Emanuel reiterated his condemnation of eliminating sanctuary city statuses, and argued that the children of illegal immigrants should not be deported for their parents’ decisions.
“I was clear about where I stood and other mayors stood on immigrants, that we welcome them because they are…striving for the American Dream, but also then how to make as a city and as a country key investments in both the talent, the training, as well as the transportation to drive economic growth,” Emanuel said.
The Chicago mayor told Trump that those who qualify in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, which allow certain illegals to stay in the country if they were children, or had children in school, should not be deported.
It would be unfair to deport these children after “they gave their name, their address, their phone number, where they are,” since “they’re trying to achieve the American Dream, it’s no fault of their own their parents came here,” Emanuel said. These people are “working hard towards the American dream, and that all of us fundamentally believe that these are students, these are also people who want to join the armed forces.”
Emanuel has been critical of Trump’s statements condemning sanctuary cities, and promised a week after the presidential election that Chicago would not turn over illegal immigrants to federal immigration authorities. (RELATED: Chicago Mayor Rejects Unity, Defies Trump)
On transportation, the economy and infrastructure growth, Emanuel and Trump have more in common. “We talked about transportation, investing in our infrastructure, job creation, economic opportunity, and I talked about three specific ideas about how to make resources go farther, things we are doing in the city of Chicago,” Emanuel said.
“If it runs on roads, rails, or runways, that investment brings an economic engine to the city. In addition to that, we talked about our community college system and all our gains in education in the city of Chicago. We have been growing in our high school graduation… we’ve gone from 52% up to 73%.”
Trump and Emanuel have known each other for years, and Trump even gave $50,000 to Emanuel’s 2010 mayoral campaign.
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